March 2003 Issue

Trade Secrets

By Bob Cerullo

Your outdoor signage sends a message to everyone who passes your shop. A message that's accurate and up-to-date attracts, rather than repels, new customers.

In the 1930s and late '40s, my dad had some nifty signs on the shop. I remember one that read "Up the hill or down the hill, our jobs are on the level." There was another one that tickled me as a youngster: "We'll give you a break on brakes."

As time progressed, we seemed to have fewer and fewer signs. The big "VINS" logo on the front of the building seemed to be enough for our customers. We had a following that was going into the second generation, and there was no shortage of business. Occasionally, we'd put a large paper sign in the front plate glass window. But we didn't really think about it too much. We were busy, and word-of-mouth was more than enough to keep all the bays full and the shop humming

Several salesman offered to co-op signs. One of our tire suppliers offered a sign that would dominate both street walls. For a time we had a 6-foot-high tire on the roof with a boy holding a candle, the slogan reading "Time to Retire." But they didn't last. We were content with the formal look of the building and believed it attracted a better level of customer.

Then we ran into one of those slow periods, when you have enough work for today but nothing good planned for tomorrow. We called it "working from hand to mouth." Somehow, something always came along to fill the gaps. And there was always housekeeping that needed to be done.

We were in a particularly scary hand-to-mouth period once when in came a gentleman who gave me the impression he'd become a very good customer. He told me he had been passing our building for ten years but never knew we were a repair shop until a friend he worked with recommended us. After we got to know him, he frequently said he wished he had known about us ten years earlier. He related several stories of disappointing experiences with other shops.

The one thing that stuck in my head was his saying he didn't know what we did. Since we had cars parked on the sidewalks and tow trucks pulling up all the time, it was pretty hard to not know we had something to do with repairing cars...or so we thought. But obviously this man, and probably many others, wasn't very attentive, and didn't have a clue that we had been repairing automobiles and light trucks since 1924. He never noticed our State Inspection sign nor the Registered Repair Shop sign.

A few weeks after my encounter with this man, I took a walk on a nearby street and looked at some of the commercial buildings. One massive building at one time was a large plumbing supply firm. But, I recalled, they had moved years earlier and I had no idea what was going on inside this block-long building just one block from our shop.

I asked the guy who knows it all-John the mailman-and he said they manufactured and distributed religious articles. You know, the plastic statues some folks like to stick on the dashboard of their car. Then I thought about our shop. Unless you knew what we did, we were just like that big, brown, unmarked building. And if you didn't come recommended, you might drive right past without ever realizing what was going on inside our 10,000-square-foot building.

I resolved right there and then to buy some signage. I thought about a conservative-looking sign that simply identified us as "VINS MOTOR SERVICE CORP." Then it struck me that, while that is our name, it sort of implies that we work only on engines. Fact is, our shop does everything from automatic transmissions to wheel alignments. A/C, brakes, car evaluations, heaters, front end, electrical, computer diagnostics-they're all part of our services.

Obviously, I wanted to keep our well-known name, but I wanted to provide people passing by with a quick summary of what we do. Eventually, I drew up a sign that had in bold letters across the top: AUTO REPAIR CENTER. In smaller letters it listed some of our services. Our name and phone number was printed at the bottom in pretty good-sized letters. I'm happy to report that the sign got immediate results. And several of the new people it brought in remarked that they never really noticed our shop before.

Having too many signs is not good either, but not having a sign that identifies your shop quickly is a big mistake. We found out the hard way that, while we enjoyed a substantial customer base, customers were always moving away, passing away, buying new cars or leasing. There is no business I can think of that doesn't need a constant supply of new customers. Repair shops are no exception.

We understand automotive technology, and may take what we know for granted. But many younger drivers and plenty of older ones don't even know what's under the hood. A few may know their car doesn't have a carburetor, that it has fuel injection instead. And others may know that it doesn't have a distributor because it has something called "distributorless ignition."

If these potential customers are driving past a shop whose sign says "Frank the Carburetor King" or "Charlie's Ignition & Carburetor," they're going to keep driving right on by. And why wouldn't they? Even motorists with minimal car knowledge may know that their car doesn't have either of these parts, so they may (rightly) assume that the shop isn't capable of working on their late-model vehicle

Make sure the signage on your shop is up-to-date and that it sends the right message to your customers and potential customers. If you have a name like "Sal's Automotive Service," that's fine, but it shouldn't be the dominant (or only) feature of your shop signage. The sign should also make it clear that your shop is into fuel injection, computer diagnostics and all of the other high-tech stuff on today's vehicles.

The Trade Secret is to make sure your shop projects a positive image. You want newcomers to know, before they even set foot in your shop, that you're able to handle their high-tech cars. The carmakers are spending millions to convince them that only the OE dealers can handle today's complex vehicles. Don't compound that myth by having an old sign describing you as a carburetor specialist. You're a professional automotive technician and should be damn proud of it. You may very well be a carburetor expert, but unless you're specializing in classic or antique cars, you should describe yourself as a fuel injection expert and a diagnostic expert, too.